Hi all, I just purchased a new monitor (BenQ SW2700PT) and have now noticed that the colours are very different between different CC applications on the same monitor. In Bridge, under Color settings, it says that CC applications are synchronised but I am still seeing quite a difference.

Bridge and Camera Raw colors seem to be the same but Photoshop is not.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any help will be very much appreciated.

If there is a difference between color managed applications (e.g. Photoshop and ACR), you have a defective monitor profile. This often affects applications differently. You need to rerun your calibrator, and make sure it's set to produce v2, matrix-based profiles - not v4 and/or table-based. The latter policies are known to be problematic in some scenarios.

The color settings determine document profile policies. That's not the issue here. This is the monitor profile. So don't worry about the synchronisation message - there's no particular need to have them synchronized anyway (mine deliberately aren't).

Note that applications without color management will never display correctly on a wide gamut monitor. That's the deal you implicitly accept when buying one. There's nothing you can do to ever make them display correctly (except "dumb it down" to sRGB, but then it's no longer wide gamut). You need to use color managed software only.

Rather than using your own photo or n image you've created, I would take a known "test" image and use that to make some checks,

[a "test" image is useful because it's generally a composite of various images including skin-tone and other "memory colours" - which means that even without a reference proof print you can tell pretty much is the appearance is in the ballpark.]

- you can download my test image in CMYK or RGB as preferred here for free:

Expert Tips & Instructions about how to use the PDI reference images in Photoshop:

You always want to open a tagged Getty-Photodisc image (PDI) "using its embedded profile":

Do not Convert its tagged/embedded ICC Profile to a different Profile

Do not Assign or Assume another Profile

Do not alter these PDI images in any way

Do not save over them

Some Adobe color-management policy settings will mysteriously Assign or Assume (apply) the wrong profile and/or Convert to a different profile — so be positive you are using my original document profile imprinted on each image, and have not inadvertently ignored or Converted or Assigned or Assumed the wrong source profile behind the scenes.

OPEN THE PDI IMAGE CORRECTLY IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP:

"Use the embedded profile (instead of the working space)" is always the correct first move when opening documents with embedded ICC color profiles that do not match Photoshop's working profile...

Is this a laptop + external monitor setup? In other words there are two displays here?

When your calibrator arrives try that first. A fresh new profile is always the first step in any display troubleshooting. However - there may be a second thing to try if you still see a difference.

It could be you've been bitten by a rather obscure and unpredictable bug that causes ACR to use the wrong monitor profile. So if you have the ACR window up on the BenQ, it may still use the laptop display's profile - while Photoshop itself does it correctly.

The way it's been described to me, ACR uses the primary display's profile (in your case laptop) even when the application window is on the secondary display (in your case the BenQ). I don't know it the opposite can happen too. Anyway, this obviously isn't how it should work.

A way to test this is to switch primary and secondary display assignment in the OS if possible. You can also - purely for testing purposes! - set the BenQ profile as default for both screens. If everything then displays correctly on the BenQ (nevermind the laptop) - then this is likely the problem.

While waiting for the calibrator to arrive, I thought I'd try your suggestion about switching the primary and secondary display assignment. It worked! The color difference is now very minimal. Thanks heaps for your advice. I really appreciate everyone's help.

This isn't something that happens often, but when it does, it's always in a laptop + external configuration - both Windows and Mac. It's hard to tell whether it's a bug in ACR, or it's some kind of hardwired laptop behavior that overrides ACR.

Anyway, a new profile from the calibrator should clean up the rest. When you say "minimal" difference, that's still too much. ACR and Photoshop should always be absolutely identical. When they're not, the problem is nearly always in the monitor profile.

The thing is, even if both end up in the same monitor profile, the source profiles are very different - and so the conversion itself, the actual math, is also different. One works in linear gamma ProPhoto, the other works with rendered files in sRGB, Adobe RGB or gamma 1.8 ProPhoto. Different calculations to end up in the same destination/monitor profile.